“I don’t believe I can eat,” protested Vera, declining bread and butter. “I have no appetite tonight.”
“Just try this soup, miss,” coaxed Murray. “It’s one of cook’s specialties. And you know, miss,” added Murray artfully, setting the plate with its smoking contents before her, “what with one thing and another, they’ve given you no rest today, and Dr. Noyes always said humans must eat to keep their machinery going.”
“Quite true,” smiled Vera. Murray was a favorite of hers, and his extreme loquaciousness often amused her. The footman was too well trained to overstep the gulf lying between their positions; he had been told off to wait upon the nurses and assist them in their care of Craig Porter on the latter’s arrival from France, and, having a natural aptitude for caring for the sick, they found him extremely useful.
Vera had not been slow in discovering Murray’s one hobby, a hobby which, seven years before, had almost cost him his place, Mrs. Porter not having taken kindly to his lugubrious countenance and depressed manner when waiting upon the table. She expressed her feelings to his former employer, a friend of long standing, who responded impressively: “My dear, Murray’s an excellent servant, with one little weakness—his health. The more certain he is that he suffers from a mortal disease, the more enjoyment he gets out of life. Just ask him now and then, ‘Murray, how are you feeling?’ and he will be your slave.”
Mrs. Porter had promptly followed the advice, and whenever she found the footman looking preternaturally solemn had cheered him immensely by inquiring for his health. Both Nurse Hall and Vera Deane had quickly discovered his hobby, and the younger nurse had advanced in his esteem by listening patiently to descriptions of every new symptom his fancy conjured up. The fact that he failed lamentably in the proper use of medical and anatomical terms never disturbed him—his last confidence to Dr. Noyes having been that he was suffering from inflammation of the semicolon.
Vera found Murray’s opinion of the excellence of the soup justified, and ate the remainder of the dinner with more zest than she had imagined possible an hour before. The relief of being alone was an additional fillip to her jaded nerves. Upon being excused from the inquest that afternoon she had gone at once to the branch telephone in Mrs. Porter’s boudoir, only to find that the instrument had been disconnected and that she could not communicate with her sister Dorothy. She had then returned to Craig Porter’s bedroom, and in trying to satisfy Mrs. Hall’s insatiable curiosity as to what had transpired at the inquest she had had no time to herself before dinner was announced.
“No coffee tonight, Murray,” she said, pushing back her chair. “I am going upstairs to Mr. Porter, so that Mrs. Hall can have her dinner immediately.”
“Mrs. Hall had tea earlier in the afternoon,” was Murray’s unexpected response. “She told me that Mrs. Porter had given her permission to spend the night in Washington.”
“Oh!” Vera’s expression was blank. “Is Mrs. Porter sending her into town?”
“No, miss; Mr. Hugh took the car just after the inquest adjourned and hasn’t returned yet. I hear tell”—Murray paused, dessert dish in hand—“that Mrs. Hall arranged with one of the ’tecs to have a taxi sent out from the city for her.” And without more ado he disappeared into the pantry.